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Who were his victims? Were there people forced to buy from the silk road? I'm not even going to address the conspiracy for murder which was literally offered

Who were his victims? Were there people forced to buy from the silk road? I'm not even going to address the conspiracy for murder which was literally offered by the government and/or informants and shoe-horned in by playing fuck fuck games about what was the overt act under a conspiracy conviction that never required the murder piece for the conviction. The jury never signaled that the overt act they counted for the conspiracy was the murder allegations, nor was he convicted of anything involving murder. Honestly it's pretty hilarious to note the government was like "look, it's violent because the government arrived and offered violence." Hopefully they locked away the officials and the informants/undercovers offering this violence as well, if indeed it is to be treated as genuine violence.

zirgs 4y ago
Corrupt government agents were involved in only one of those fake murders. And yes - both of them were convicted and jailed. The other 5 were organised by a Canadian scammer who also stole a lot of money from Silk Road customers. The whole case is hilarious. Some dude goes to SR and robs his customers blind. And then he approaches the site admin, pretends to be a Hell's Angels member and offers to kill the scammer for money. And then steals that money too. Oh and if I recall correctly - he then asked Ross for some money up front and promised to sell a large amount of drugs on SR. He stole that money too and disappeared. So even if we consider that one murder to be entrapment. Ross is still guilty of the other 5, because law enforcement wasn't involved in those in any way. Paying for 5 murders to other criminals makes you a violent criminal. Even if those other criminals turn out to be scammers.
- notch898a 4y ago
  Look I'm willing to accept on preponderance of the evidence Ross probably did that. But lets examine things criminally. What conviction found he must have been involved in the murder scheme? I know his conspiracies alleged that could have been a possible overt act, but did the jury actually ever convict him on anything involving murder or state the overt act for the various generic conspiracies was actually the murder allegation? As far as I can tell the prosecutor said, here is a list of a bunch of possible acts that cover the more generic drug and kingpin conspiracies. And the jury found him guilty that at least some of those happened, but not necessarily the murder-for-hire one. He wasn't found guilty of an actual charge that required murder. It looks like the judge just short-circuited to sentencing him for it despite as far as I can tell no evidence that's what the jury convicted him of. I find it pretty chilling you can just use a generic conspiracy charge, have the prosecutor say "coulda done any one of those things" and the jury say "well he did at least one of those things, not necessarily the murder bit" and the judge just short-circuit to sentencing like he was guilty of paying for the hit. If the charge is so vague as to not know which elements of the crime he actually guilty of then IMO the sentencing should not be able to presume it must have been the worst thing the prosecutor alleged.
  - zirgs 4y ago
    The crimes that he was convicted of have wide sentencing guidelines. 10 years to life and 20 years to life. If you're convicted of a crime that carries, say, 1 to 3 years in prison then the judge could not sentence you to anything more than that. So even if you had some weird murder for hire chats on your computer - you would still get 3 years max. Mitigating and aggravating factors don't have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. So the moral of the story is - if you do something illegal - don't commit violent acts as part of it. Judges really don't like that.
zirgs 4y ago
Multiple people OD on drugs that they bought on SR. SR also sold stuff like hacking tools and fake documents. Ross allowed minors to buy drugs on his site and had no mechanisms to prevent that. Alcohol and cigarette vendors aren't allowed to sell their goods to minors. If they do that - they can be punished and the minor who bought that stuff is considered a victim. So it's no different with SR and other illegal markets. SR is actually worse than street dealers, because at least some of them refuse to sell drugs to children.

zirgs 4y ago

Corrupt government agents were involved in only one of those fake murders. And yes - both of them were convicted and jailed. The other 5 were organised by a Canadian scammer who also stole a lot of money from Silk Road customers. The whole case is hilarious. Some dude goes to SR and robs his customers blind. And then he approaches the site admin, pretends to be a Hell's Angels member and offers to kill the scammer for money. And then steals that money too. Oh and if I recall correctly - he then asked Ross for some money up front and promised to sell a large amount of drugs on SR. He stole that money too and disappeared. So even if we consider that one murder to be entrapment. Ross is still guilty of the other 5, because law enforcement wasn't involved in those in any way. Paying for 5 murders to other criminals makes you a violent criminal. Even if those other criminals turn out to be scammers.

notch898a 4y ago
Look I'm willing to accept on preponderance of the evidence Ross probably did that. But lets examine things criminally. What conviction found he must have been involved in the murder scheme? I know his conspiracies alleged that could have been a possible overt act, but did the jury actually ever convict him on anything involving murder or state the overt act for the various generic conspiracies was actually the murder allegation? As far as I can tell the prosecutor said, here is a list of a bunch of possible acts that cover the more generic drug and kingpin conspiracies. And the jury found him guilty that at least some of those happened, but not necessarily the murder-for-hire one. He wasn't found guilty of an actual charge that required murder. It looks like the judge just short-circuited to sentencing him for it despite as far as I can tell no evidence that's what the jury convicted him of. I find it pretty chilling you can just use a generic conspiracy charge, have the prosecutor say "coulda done any one of those things" and the jury say "well he did at least one of those things, not necessarily the murder bit" and the judge just short-circuit to sentencing like he was guilty of paying for the hit. If the charge is so vague as to not know which elements of the crime he actually guilty of then IMO the sentencing should not be able to presume it must have been the worst thing the prosecutor alleged.
- zirgs 4y ago
  The crimes that he was convicted of have wide sentencing guidelines. 10 years to life and 20 years to life. If you're convicted of a crime that carries, say, 1 to 3 years in prison then the judge could not sentence you to anything more than that. So even if you had some weird murder for hire chats on your computer - you would still get 3 years max. Mitigating and aggravating factors don't have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. So the moral of the story is - if you do something illegal - don't commit violent acts as part of it. Judges really don't like that.

zirgs 4y ago

Multiple people OD on drugs that they bought on SR. SR also sold stuff like hacking tools and fake documents. Ross allowed minors to buy drugs on his site and had no mechanisms to prevent that. Alcohol and cigarette vendors aren't allowed to sell their goods to minors. If they do that - they can be punished and the minor who bought that stuff is considered a victim. So it's no different with SR and other illegal markets. SR is actually worse than street dealers, because at least some of them refuse to sell drugs to children.